The Lost Heir

by G. A. Henty

"It cannot be; surely it cannot be!" she murmured. "Oh, Mr. Pettigrew! say that you cannot believe it."

"I can hardly say that, my dear; the whole affair is such a terrible one that I can place no bounds whatever to the villainy of which this man may be capable. This may be the missing child, but, on the other hand, it may be only a part of the whole plot."

"But who else can it be if it has Walter's clothes on?"

"As to that I can say nothing; but you must remember that this man is an extraordinarily adroit plotter, and would hesitate at nothing to secure this inheritance. There would be no very great difficulty in obtaining from some rascally undertaker the body of a child of the right age, dressing him up in some of our ward's clothes, and dropping the body into the canal, which may have been done seven weeks ago, or may have been done but a month. Of course I do not mean to say that this was so. I only mean to say that it is possible. No. I expressed my opinion, when we talked it over before, that no sensible man would put his neck in a noose if he could carry out his object without doing so; and murder could hardly be perpetrated without running a very great risk, for the people with whom the child was placed would, upon missing it suddenly, be very likely to suspect that it had been made away with, and would either denounce the crime or extort money by holding a threat over his head for years."

"Yes, that may be so!" Hilda exclaimed, rising to her feet. "Let us go and see at once. I will take Netta with me; she knows him as well as I do."

She ran upstairs and in a few words told Netta the news, and in five minutes they came down, ready to start.

"I have told Walter's nurse to come with us," Hilda said. "If anyone can recognize the child she ought to be able to do so. Fortunately, she is still in the house."

"Now, young ladies," the lawyer said before they started, "let me caution you, unless you feel a moderate certainty that this child is Walter Rivington, make no admission whatever that you see any resemblance. If the matter comes to a trial, your evidence and mine cannot but weigh with the court as against that of this man who is interested in proving its identity with Walter. Of course, if there is any sign or mark on the body that you recognize, you will acknowledge it as the body of our ward. We shall then have to fight the case on other grounds. But unless you detect some unmistakable mark, and it is extremely unlikely that you will do so in the state the body must be in, confine yourself to simply stating that you fail to recognize it in any way."

"There never was any mark on the poor child's body," Hilda said. "I have regretted it so much, because, in the absence of any descriptive marks, the chance of his ever being found was, of course, much lessened."

The lawyer had come in a four-wheeled cab, and in this the party all took their places. Not a word was spoken on the way, except that Hilda repeated what Mr. Pettigrew had said to the nurse. It was with very white faces that they entered the lockhouse. The little body was lying on a board supported by two trestles. It was covered by a piece of sailcloth, and the tattered garments that it had had on were placed on a chair beside it. Prepared as she was for something dreadful, the room swam round, and had Hilda not been leaning on Mr. Pettigrew's arm she would have fallen. There was scarce a semblance of humanity in the little figure. The features of the face had been entirely obliterated, possibly by the passage of barges, possibly by the work of simple decay.